Video compression uses block processing for many operations. In block processing, a block of neighboring pixels is grouped into a coding unit and compression operations treat this group of pixels as one unit to take advantage of correlations among neighboring pixels within the coding unit. Block-based processing often includes prediction coding and transform coding. Transform coding with quantization is a type of data compression which is commonly “lossy” as the quantization of a transform block taken from a source picture often discards data associated with the transform block in the source picture, thereby lowering its bandwidth requirement but often also resulting in quality loss in reproducing of the original transform block from the source picture.
MPEG-4 AVC, also known as H.264, is an established video compression standard that uses transform coding in block processing. In H.264, a picture is divided into macroblocks (MBs) of 16×16 pixels. Each MB is often further divided into smaller blocks. Blocks equal in size to or smaller than a MB are predicted using intra-/inter-picture prediction, and a spatial transform along with quantization is applied to the prediction residuals. The quantized transform coefficients of the residuals are commonly encoded using entropy coding methods (e.g., variable length coding or arithmetic coding). Context Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding (CABAC) was introduced in H.264 to provide a substantially lossless compression efficiency by combining an adaptive binary arithmetic coding technique with a set of context models. Context model selection plays a role in CABAC in providing a degree of adaptation and redundancy reduction. H.264 specifies two kinds of scan patterns over 2D blocks. A zigzag scan is used for pictures coded with progressive video compression techniques and an alternative scan is for pictures coded with interlaced video compression techniques.
HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding), an international video coding standard developed to succeed H.264, extends transform block sizes to 16×16 and 32×32 pixels to benefit high definition (HD) video coding. HEVC may also use a variety of scan patterns, including diagonal scan, vertical scan and horizontal scan.
Within video compression standards such as HEVC, coding mechanisms for reducing spatial and temporal redundancies are desirable. Ongoing efforts are directed at increasing the efficiencies of encoders and decoders (codecs), which compress and decompress, respectively, video data streams. Because a purpose of codecs is to reduce the size of digital video frames, thereby promoting the efficient storage and communication of video, development in codec hardware and encoding/decoding processes continues.